


The Dreams in Desolation, the Gentle Wind in Dreams

by selstarry



Category: Juuni Kokki | Twelve Kingdoms, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe- Twelve Kingdoms, Fantasy, Government, Historical Fantasy, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Plotty, Shapeshifting, Slow Burn, designed to be readable without knowledge of Twelve Kingdoms, love in the time of setsuzan, substitute figure skating with governance???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-12 14:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9077824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selstarry/pseuds/selstarry
Summary: A story of love, life, mythology, politics, and civil engineering.





	1. Chapter 1

In the middle of the Twelve Kingdoms were four seas like the eyes of Heaven, and in the middle of the seas was the island Koukai. Yuuri glimpsed it briefly from above as he flew over the Black Sea, through the clouds and haze: truly it was _Koukai_ , a _Yellow Sea_ made from stone, crags and choppy hills rising from the earth like waves frozen at their height. Mountains ringed it like a curtain wall, and at its heart, the peaks of the gods pierced the sky. Even when he craned his neck, he could no more see where they ended than he would be able to on the ground. But after all, he told himself, he did not come for the sake of the gods.

Then Vicchan lurched underneath him. The hound-demon recovered, wings thumping the air, tongue lolling as he panted thunderously. Then he lurched again. Face pressed against Vicchan’s back, tears of horror in his eyes, Yuuri realized he could hear him dying.

“Please, Vicchan,” Yuuri begged him as they dropped by increments, each fall longer and less steadily broken than the previous one. “I can see boats. We’ll get you help.” The wind tore at them. “Good boy, good boy, I’m sorry--”

They crashed into the Black Sea, the water so bitterly cold with winter that the impact stole Yuuri’s breath twice over. But they were near a boat, the time being so close to the solstice, and a passenger from Hasetsu Province recognized Yuuri. The boat hands fished him out with poles and nets.

“Vicchan too,” Yuuri gasped between chattering teeth.

The boat hands looked dubiously at the hound-demon drifting limply in the water.

“Please.” Yuuri’s fingers shook too badly to untie his purse strings, so instead he shoved the entire purse at them.

The boat hands seemed to debate in silent glances between themselves. One took the purse, extracted a healthy fee from it, and tossed the rest back to Yuuri. “Well,” she said, her weatherbeaten face showing pity. “I suppose it won’t rot in this weather.”

They stowed Vicchan in the hold, wrapped in a tarp. Yuuri numbly stroked his head, unable to taste the difference between seawater and tears as ice stiffened his once-warm pelt.

The fellow passenger from Hasetsu offered Yuuri half of his cramped quarters, and his own blankets while Yuuri’s clothes and travelbag dried. He also kindly pretended not to notice that Yuuri cried, miserable and sleepless, all the rest of the way to Koukai.

It was all his fault, Yuuri thought. Vicchan might have been a demon-beast, but he’d collected many scars and old wounds over the years. No creature lived well in a time of Setsuzan. Yuuri should have just found a damn boat in the first place, but Vicchan had seemed so restless, so eager to travel after the long confinement following his last injury from a bandit raid. Yuuri couldn’t bear to leave him behind, and for his weakness, Vicchan was dead.

Yuuri only felt worse after stepping off the boat, abandoning Vicchan to the humor of the captain. Even in the early light of dawn, the shore was thick with boats and people from all walks of life: battered fishing vessels bearing gaunt peasants; tall merchant ships whose bright painted hulls and sails matched their masters’ silk robes; sleek, scarred warships that could only belong to pirates or mercenaries, because the kingdom of Ryuu had last possessed a navy thirty years ago. There were even a few other demon-mounts like Vicchan. Yuuri recognized their riders, but kept his distance, hoping they wouldn’t see him.

So many people. So many people more worthy of kingship than him.

Reigon Gate opened only on the day of the winter solstice, allowing passage through the mountains. At the first creaks and groans of its chains, the people on the shore shouldered their packs and woke their small children, massing in front of the gate. And yet they filed through in a more orderly fashion than Yuuri had ever seen a crowd accomplish. Here they hoped, so badly, for a king among them.

The road unfolded before them day after day, through the mountains and over rocky hills, through gorges and rivers and thickets graying with winter. Those riding demon-mounts or even simple horses left the pedestrians behind in the dust. Yuuri’s stomach twisted as he realized how long the journey was taking on foot, how much longer it would take. If Vicchan were here, he could simply fly in and out without too much danger, but now he would have to wait for the next gate to open on the spring equinox. The captain of the boat promised he would wait for them, but what if he didn’t? What would happen to Vicchan if the weather warmed early? What might happen to Hasetsu Province in Yuuri’s absence? He’d left in late autumn, after the harvest, because winter was the slow season. People stayed in their houses and didn’t make trouble, and the snow kept bandits and demons likewise confined. What if he couldn’t get back by planting season? The demons always came in planting season, as surely as spring rains.

But with Reigon Gate closed behind him, Yuuri had no choice but to continue on. The winds became sweet and unseasonably mild. Mount Hou grew on the horizon until he could see individual mighty crags. If they were crowned with white, it was flowers, not snow.

Tucked on a plateau halfway up were glimpses of buildings and structures. The kirins lived there, Yuuri knew. The reminder briefly seared away his fears, by replacing them with a different set. _Victor lived there._

Victor should have been known as Ryuuki, Ryuu’s kirin. Custom decreed that only a ruler could grant a kirin a name other than their title, and Victor had not found his king in twenty-seven years of searching. But custom had never applied to Victor, who was called thus by all because he was champion in all he did. He half ran what remained of Ryuu’s central government from the Koukai palace, against the will and wishes of lofty sages and power-hungry ministers alike. His tamed demons were Ryuu’s best army. He was, the sages muttered, a frightful influence on the younger kirins.

But not even he could lift the curse that the old king’s misrule had left upon the land. Setsuzan, the Mountain-Breaking Desolation. An entire generation had grown up knowing nothing but demons, plague, and famine, as regular as the coming of years. If Victor died without crowning a new king, a second generation would follow suit.

And yet, for all Yuuri loved Ryuu and Hasetsu Province and his family and compatriots and friends, wanted them to prosper, the thought of Victor dying kingless was terrible to him in a different and still deeper way. He still remembered the time as a child when Lady Minako had taken Yuko and him to the capital. They had joined the crowds packing the broad main avenue in front of the palace, in anticipation of seeing their kirin, who had newly come of age and could now choose a king--perhaps from them. Yuuri had his feet stepped on and his fried dough sticks jostled to the ground, and at one point thought that the press of bodies would squish him flat like a grape. But it had all been worth it for one glimpse of Victor seated gracefully on his massive hound-demon, the crowd parting before him, his long windblown hair catching the sky in its net like lightning.

One day, abruptly, the procession of pilgrims halted in its path. When it resumed its forward progress, more slowly now, excited chatter ran up and down the line. They had reached Mount Hou! Their kirin had come forth to grant them audience!

But the mood grew more solemn as the line continued to wind forward. Victor had looked upon the first of the pilgrims and failed to sense the king’s aura in them. Yuuri remembered who had been in the front. A man who had brought a horse but chose to walk with those who owned none, carrying the travel bags of the young and elderly on its back. A woman who had showed Yuuri which berries here were safe to eat when his previously soaked traveler’s bread spoiled from the newly warm weather.

How could he be worthy of Victor, when they weren’t? How could he have been so stupid as to imagine himself a king? Yuuri’s breathing came shallow and uneven. He was a jumped-up local official who’d deserted his post and killed his own dog. He wasn’t fit to govern a barnyard, let alone a kingdom.

Victor was just ahead now, standing at the gates in human form. He looked older every time Yuuri glimpsed him from afar. His hair, which had been a shade paler than the typical kirin gold to begin with, was now almost pure silver. Kirins had short lifespans without a king.

But Victor stood self-assuredly, guarded by his demons, the younger Houki watching sullenly at his side as he dispensed fate to the pilgrims as self-assuredly as any king. No, better. He shone as brilliantly as ever.

Yuuri ran.

“The Reiken Gate won’t open until the spring equinox,” Victor called after him. He sounded curious, and mildly concerned.

“Who cares about that moron?” Houki scoffed. “If he’s going to leave crying and useless, he should get out of our sight now instead of later.”

Yuuri had complied handily, when he tripped over something solid and moving.

“Yuuri!” a voice exclaimed.

On the ground, Yuuri rolled over and blinked his tear-blurred eyes until he could make out the face looming above him. “Minister Celestino? Why are you here?” Beside him, Celestino’s bird demon-mount clacked his beak at him irritably. Celestino’s aides watched the scene from their own mounts, bemused.

“We have business with our Victor, but Yakov informs me he’s busy with pilgrims.” Celestino eyed the line trailing off into the distance. “And might be for a long while yet.” He focused on Yuuri and his travel-stained clothes. “Yuuri, were you--”

“Sir, could I borrow a demon-mount?” Yuuri blurted. He rubbed at his face with the heel of his hand. “Please. Vicchan died on the way here. I need to get back to my post.”

Celestino sighed. “We have an extra mount. You can ride back with us tomorrow morning.” He reached for his mount’s saddlebags. “In the meantime,” he said, taking out a gourd of wine, “I think this will do you good.”

After a few gulps, Yuuri decided that it would.


	2. Chapter 2

In all honesty, Yuuri would never have made the rank of governor in a better age, the sort where previous governors didn’t get eaten by demons on their morning strolls. And their advisors weren’t suspected of sprinkling powdered demon blood on their shoes in the hopes of hastening their own promotion. And also Yuuri was pretty sure Lady Minako pulled a few strings for him in the ensuing chaos.

The cheers of the residents as they saw him fly overhead only made him want to crawl under a large rock. Instead, he got to climb on top of one. The governor’s palace stood at the peak of a Sky-Pillar Mountain, of course, above the Sea of Clouds. In summer, Yuuri occasionally flew directly through the Sea of Clouds, but he’d freeze solid if he tried that today. Icy wind buffeted him as he dismounted on the landing platform just below. Today, he trudged up the stairs.

“Yuuri!” Yuko jumped up from her desk the moment she saw him. She’d taken up the role of provincial advisor, and acting governor in his absence, out of a sense of responsibility rather than any interest in power. Yuuri knew she’d wanted to be a teacher, once, back when things weren’t so bad and more people could spare their children for school instead of work. But he was grateful that she was here. The local government was permanently understaffed; promising young officials deserted in droves to the capital, Shisou, where the city walls were higher and the opportunities for advancement better.

“What happened while I was gone?” Yuuri inquired, feeling a twinge of guilt. He’d pushed his demon-mount hard, but he’d still returned weeks later than promised, having had to walk the distance between Reigon Gate and Mount Hou.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, the winter’s been uneventful. The blizzards weren’t nearly as bad as last year’s. We’re within our repair budget so far, like you expected. I was a bit nervous about that land dispute in the southern prefectures, but nothing flared up before the snows came. We can sort things out in the spring, when everyone’s had time to calm down...”

Yuuri struggled to listen through his weariness. “Thanks, Yuko,” he said when she was done. “I can take over from here. You should rest, spend time with your family. I’m sorry I was gone for so long.”

As if in response, three grinning heads popped up from behind Yuko’s desk.

“Yuuri! You smell like you haven’t washed in a _year_!”

“Don’t worry, Mom made us put your desk back together, good as new!”

“We’ll do your paperwork if you let us ride that mount-demon outside!”

Yuuri laughed nervously and escaped while he had the chance.

The governor’s palace contained both residences and offices. Yuuri lived here normally, as did Yuko and her family, and many of his other high-ranking officials. It was by far the safest place in Hasetsu Province.

But Yuuri’s family still lived below. Business was almost nonexistent nowadays, with the roads so dangerous and the hot springs made so unappealing by Setsuzan--they had a nasty tendency to spring leaks of lava. But the Katsuki family took pride in running the last inn in town.

Yuuri’s demon-mount snapped at him with violent intent when he came down the stairs once more. Even demon-mounts expected rest, and they weren’t obligated to mind their manners around any master but the one that originally tamed them. Yuuri dodged the long, razor-edged beak and hauled himself onto the demon-mount’s back. He was as desperate to rest as the demon, but he had one last destination for the night.

Yuuri paid his respects to his family, enduring their kindness and understanding. Then he carried Vicchan’s body to the corner of the inn’s back courtyard where he liked to sit on hot days. Yuuri could still picture him there, snuffling softly, the breeze ruffling his fur. The earth was hard and frozen under the snow, but Yuuri dug the grave with his own hands, heedless of blisters, and buried Vicchan at last.

He slept that night in the cramped, drafty room where he’d grown up, too tired to dream.

* * *

 

When Yuuri returned to his office the next day, one of Phichit’s birds was perched on the back of his chair. “Yuuri, why didn’t you tell me you were going to Mount Hou?” the bird sang in Phichit’s voice, reproducing his master’s message from memory. “I had to hear about it from Lady Minako!”

Yuuri winced guiltily. His old friend’s knack for small creatures was uncanny. Unlike everyone else’s birds, his somehow never got eaten, lost, or buried in storms while flying routes that would daunt a platoon of soldiers. Yuuri received more news from him than he did from the capital.

“Anyway, pretty good winter, huh? We didn’t get any snow this year! The elders say this is what Ko Province was like every winter, before Setsuzan set in. It’s really neat to think about! Of course, warm weather means more demons, but my army mobilization reforms seem to be working. When the ox demons attacked Sai District right before the New Year, my pike division arrived before they killed anyone.” Yuuri’s heart gladdened at Phichit’s happy, relieved sigh. Phichit was an even younger governor than Yuuri, and shouldered the same heavy burdens.

Yuuri was reading through the small mountain of reports on his own desk. Yuko had given him the overview, but he didn’t feel confident without the details. The heap looked worse than it was; Hasetsu Province had fewer districts, prefectures, and counties than ever, some merged due to lack of resources, some removed from the map altogether because all their inhabitants had died or fled. The documents seemed so bulky only because many of the smaller, rural subdivisions had run out of paper, and now wrote their reports the old-fashioned way, on slips of bamboo knotted together with string.

The resulting mountain was also a good way to test the load-bearing capabilities of the desk, after whatever the Nishigori triplets had done to it.

“...So this year we made the _best_ rice cakes with red bean filling! It was the really good kind of red bean filling too, where you have the bean paste but also some whole beans mixed in to add texture, and I carved a cute hamster mold out of wood to press the cakes into. I wish I could show you, Yuuri!”

It wouldn’t be one of Phichit’s messages without lovingly detailed descriptions of food. Phichit would send pictures if he could fit a painting around the bird’s leg. Yuuri’s stomach rumbled. He wondered if he had time to fly down to the inn for lunch…

“...No news from Shisou this time, sorry. I asked Leo too and he hasn’t gotten any messengers either.” The bird sighed, an adorable wispy sound. “Well, we’re used to it.”

The royal ministers in the capital could be a crotchety and secretive bunch, perhaps justifiably so. Local officials held considerable power over their own domains as long as the central government remained headless; historically, quite a few governors had preferred ruling in chaos to serving in peace, attempting everything from revolt to assassination to prevent the ascension of a new king. Information was currency, and the ministers feared funding future enemies.

Or maybe there were just a lot of hungry demons swarms on the roads lately.

Dammit, Yuuri had been too distressed, and then too drunk, and then too distressed all over again to ask Minister Celestino for news before they’d parted ways. Phichit would be horrified if he knew.

“Well, spring is coming. I’m almost looking forward to it, haha. We’ll do our best for our people...I really love being governor, you know. It’s hard, sometimes, but I can do so much to help Ko Province.

“Stay safe, Yuuri! You might not be back yet, but send me a reply when you have the chance. We’ll see each other again someday.”

Spring was coming. Yuuri set down his budget report and walked out onto the balcony. Below, the Sea of Clouds lapped sedately against the mountainside. The breeze was still cold, but a little damp around the edges now, as if heralding the approach of snowmelt and misty rains.

Spring was _work_. Roads thawed to mud, and rivers burgeoned to threaten bridges and fields; Yuuri would need people to serve in labor gangs. Then the demons and bandits would invade in full force, hungrier than ever after the long winter; Yuuri would need people to serve as soldiers. But the crops must be planted on time and tended to, if Hasetsu didn’t want to starve next winter; Yuuri needed farmers to stay in their fields. They were going to be stretched thin, even if Yuuri didn’t do something stupid.

Yuuri thought he had a pretty good chance of doing something stupid.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Updates are going to be slower because I'm busy suffering at school.
> 
> Also, just a note before we get any further, a number of the major characters are from other kingdoms in this setting and therefore won't turn up much in this fic. (I totally have a spinoff fic idea with kirin!Yuri and bear hanjyuu!Otabek, though. Maybe someday...)

Rain spattered from the brim of Yuuri’s waterproofed straw hat as he flew his demon-mount along the South Canal, inspecting the work gangs shoring up its banks with baskets of gravel and sand. It was the fourth month, and Hasetsu Province was entering its second week of rains.

According to the elders, Hasetsu’s climate used to be much drier. That was why Hasetsu’s system of canals and river works had been designed around  _ distributing  _ water all over the countryside instead of draining it away, with disastrous results when Setsuzan first began. Even worse, outside of the biggest cities, homes in Ryuu were typically built underground. Such dwellings were convenient to construct, requiring little more than a sharp shovel in their simplest form, and thick earth insulated against Ryuu’s harsh winters. But flooding turned them into death traps. Every time, Yuuri had to watch his soldiers pull bloated corpses from the stinking mud.

Over the thirty years of Setsuzan, Yuuri and his predecessors had done what they could. New dams and levees hemmed in the river. New drainage ditches redirected excess water away from populated areas. But the province never had enough to work with. Victor’s government had retained more order and prosperity than most interregnum regimes in the past, but it still couldn’t spare much attention for an area that wasn’t actively rebelling or on the verge of collapse, and Hasetsu itself was a rural, inhospitable province that produced little more than the food necessary for basic sustenance. Stone, lumber, and steel tools all had to be imported at great expense; the low population density meant a small labor pool to draw from, and few skilled workers and engineers. 

A few minutes downstream, a rough dam cut across the canal, so that the water instead flowed into a new side channel that led it a safe distance around a cluster of vulnerable valley towns. The dam and side channel were both walled with stone salvaged from the canal beyond the diversion. Stealing from tomorrow to pay for today. Sometimes, that was all you could do.

The side channel, though, was the site of fresh troubles. Seeing the limited supply of stone, its designer had thought to reinforce just the sides of the channel. The flow of water would erode at the soil at the bottom, she’d written in the archived report, deepening the channel without need for further manual digging.

She forgot that stripped-off silt didn’t magically disappear. Instead, the current deposited it downstream at bends and areas of slowest flow, clogging the channel. In an ideal world, teams of oxen would dredge out the muck every other year. Given the strains of Setsuzan, every five would have to do.

From far above, Yuuri regarded the oxen plodding alongside the rain-swollen channel with a mixture of relief and exhaustion, but little sense of accomplishment. Obtaining them had been a nightmare. There had been the logistics of transporting, feeding, and caring for sixty large animals over roads the consistency of bean paste. But first, Heavens above, there had been the local politics. District officials had responded to Yuuri’s requisition for a hundred oxen with stony silence or excuses, unwilling to give up their animals for a neighbor’s benefit, even as the third month turned into the fourth month and the waters began to rise. With time running out, Yuuri had no choice but to come down to the South Canal and humiliatingly, inefficiently requisition oxen directly from nearby villages.

But at least the channel had been dredged out in time. Whatever else, when properly maintained, it  _ was  _ deep enough to hold the diverted water safely.

All that was left was to return the oxen before planting season.

The rain and wind hid the ripple of movement in the tall roadside grass. One moment, there were just the oxen on the road, big dark forms steadily rounding the bend two by two. The next, the oxen were bellowing, in disarray, flanked on both sides by bandits.

Yuuri made an undignified sound and yanked on his reins. The demon-mount dove, knocking one bandit flying, pinning another underneath its claw. “Where’s your leader?” Yuuri yelled at him. The bandits had been too efficient in their ambush not to have one. Always capture the leader first.

The pinned bandit shook his head frantically. “The usurper Minami is forcing us to steal oxen and grain. It’s chaos down south in Hakata District. He’s taken over everything. Have pity on us, my lord! We want our real officials back as much as anyone--”

The demon-beast stumbled as an agitated ox lurched against him. Seeing the opportunity, the bandit scrabbled free and ran into the tall grass, shouting for the others to follow him.

“Soldiers, to me!” Yuuri shouted belatedly, finally remembering that he had men assigned to either end of the oxen train. But the other bandits were turning tail, disappearing into the roadside grass. Yuuri tried to give chase, only for his mount to stumble again, tangled in the trailing ends of cut harnesses. By the time the soldiers arrived, the only escapees left to round up were oxen.

They found all sixty in the end. A few were limping, and one had broken his leg in the mud. Nothing he couldn’t recover from, but the family that owned him was going to have a hard planting season without his labor. The harnesses that the bandits cut would also have to be replaced. Yuuri wondered if he could send the bill to Hakata District.

Yuuri had read of the border disputes taking place there, but the reports had all been about tax collectors crossing prefectural lines and a few peasant mobs. Or, at least, the reports from last fall. Hakata District never sent a reply to his requisition order, but it was hardly the only district to do that, and he hadn’t thought much of it at the time. How had that escalated to the overthrow of appointed officials by someone he’d never heard of?

Then again, were bandits a reliable source of information? The demon-mount hissed, sensing Yuuri’s unease. They’d tried to steal the oxen with a demon-mount flying overhead. The rain would have reduced visibility, but surely not by that much. Could they have been trying to get caught by someone important?

Or maybe he was overthinking. Yuuri knew he was good at overthinking. He would quietly send investigators to Hakata District for now; he needed to keep his army for other things. 

The rain had thinned to a prickling drizzle. Yuuri hoped they’d finished preparations at the provincial capital.

* * *

 

The first demons of the year appeared as Yuuri was flying back to Hasetsu Castle, two red-taloned birds that dwarfed his demon-mount, winging out of the mist. “Up,” Yuuri said to his mount as he reached for his bow. He needed more vertical space to maneuver.

The royal government hoarded touki weapons jealously; they cut through a sage’s immortality as easily as they cut through demon flesh, and all of the highest-ranking ministers were sages. Hasetsu Province’s collection of touki upon Yuuri’s appointment as governor consisted of three daggers, one and a half swords, a halberd head, and twenty arrows. Fourteen now--Yuuri took a while to realize that the arrows would be irreplaceable until Setsuzan ended and the royal ministers felt safe from governors again.

Screeches rang out from below. The bird demons came in hot pursuit, wings slicing through the mist, the air thick with their fetid smell. That was good; he didn’t like risking long-range shots with the touki arrows. If he missed, he’d never find them again.

So, the trick was this. Let them catch up. Then dip aside, fast, neat, so they blast up past you. Then pick the one closest, slip a shot between its ribs, and  _ dive. _

The demon’s ragged scream cut through the howl of the wind. Yuuri had trained with his new demon-mount in the winter months, but he didn’t move instinctively in rhythm with him the way he had with Vicchan. His shot had gone in at the wrong angle to kill cleanly. But the bird was dropping, thrashing ever closer, even as its mate dove to follow it.

Yuuri squinted against the wind, tracking the position of the arrow, the fletching bright blue against gray plumage. Vicchan would have been solidly built enough to just slam into the demon, but the bird mount had to maneuver carefully, dodging wildly buffeting wings and raking claws as they met again in midair.

Yuuri’s hand closed around the arrow in the demon’s chest and  _ twisted _ it free, in a wide, ripping arc. He shot it through the second demon’s eye.

Intercepting this demon in its fall was a more leisurely business. Silence descended once more as Yuuri wiped the arrow clean and returned it to his quiver.

Yuuri resumed flying home. About half an hour out from the capital, through the thinning mist, he at last saw the black column of rising smoke.

* * *

 

The battle was won by the time Yuuri reached Hasetsu Castle, the signal pylon extinguished, but fear went through him at the cost of it.

The air smelled of smoke and rot. Demon bodies littered the streets, the rooftops, the city ramparts, the same birdlike creatures that Yuuri had fought. Too many of them. Yuuri had never seen bird demons of this size gather in more than pairs.

And for each demon corpse, a human corpse lay under woven grass mats in the shadow of the city wall. The wounded had been carried indoors; their moans seeped through gouged and battered walls.

“Lady Minako! Are you alright?”

“Just a scratch,” she sighed, tugging the bloodied rag off her hand. “It’s healed already.” She still wore her sword and armor, but her ichor-splattered glaive was slung across the back of her demon-mount.

Lady Minako looked thirty but was twice that age, having been granted sagehood and an estate for her peerless dancing by the old king. She could have easily left the kingdom after Setsuzan began, but had chosen to stay in her home province of Hasetsu, holding no office and no authority other than what its residents’ esteem for her conferred.

“Yuuko has a list of the fallen,” Lady Minako said. “She and Takeshi are documenting the damage to the outer walls right now.” She pulled off her helm and raked a hand through her damp hair. “ _ I _ need a drink. Somehow I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of this season.”

He’d been gone again, Yuuri thought, watching her walk away. He never did enough. A part of him said he ought to resign as governor and serve as a petty clerk or army officer, or maybe a farmer, some kind of job where his incompetence would hurt fewer people. He would, he really would, if only Yuuko wasn’t the next most qualified official after him. The demands of the governorship would kill what remained of her family life.

Agitated thoughts shadowed him as he ascended the Sky-Pillar Mountain. Yuuko smiled as he walked past her office, despite her visible exhaustion and the piles of records on her desk. One of the triplets lay curled up on her lap, snoring gently. Yuuri smiled back with effort.

At his desk, he took out a sheet of paper and began to write.

_ To Lord Regent Victor, Kirin of Ryuu, Chief Advisor to the Throne, Governor of Ro Province: _

_ On this day, the fourteenth of April, Hasetsu Castle was grievously assaulted by a flock of fully-grown kochou numbering over thirty, which slew thirty-three citizens and damaged many structures and buildings within the city. In the light of this unprecedented attack upon my province, I, Yuuri Katsuki, Lord Governor of Hasetsu Province, humbly beseech my lord for any assistance that may be rendered… _

No. He couldn’t.

This was just the old fantasy again. How many times had he selfishly daydreamed of Victor flying in on his hound-demon and taking charge and fixing everything for him? The districts would obey if Victor were here. The demons would never get past the city walls if Victor were here. If only Victor would come and save Yuuri from his own pathetic messes.

He couldn’t. The letter fluttered to the ground in the last red rays of sunlight.


End file.
